


making yourself up as you go along

by nerddowell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coming Out, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, General Thick Idiot Renly Baratheon, M/M, Masturbation, Porn Watching, Trans Character, Trans Loras, Trans Loras Tyrell, Trans Male Character, Underage Drinking, Welsh Renly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 00:05:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: Loras discovers himself when he's sixteen years, three months and ten days old. And by that, he means he had a massive panic attack in his best friend's bedroom and cried because he doesn't know how to tell Renly that he's a boy, not a girl.Takes place in the same universe asthere's an art to life's distractions; that is to say, it's the same setting and the same characters, but an alternative/rewrite of the same story.





	making yourself up as you go along

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _True Trans Soul Rebel_ by Against Me!
> 
> WARNINGS FOR: Accidental (unknowing) misgendering occurs in the story, as well as imagined misgendering, reference to past misgendering, and use of a birth name in the absence of a preferred one. Some internalized cissexism. Loras is referred to by female pronouns until he comes out and by female/birth name until he finds a new one.

Margaery was texting Sansa in between painting her nails, sat on her bed with _Bridesmaids_ playing on her laptop but paying absolutely no attention to the movie whatsoever. Llio, watching her sister’s delicate hands manipulate the brush skilfully to cover each nail with sparkly gold polish, looked down at her own bitten nails and grazed knuckles and flicked through Garlan’s _Match_ magazine in between checking the rugby scores on her phone. Porthcawl were winning against Saracens in Division 3, but in the Championship, Emlyn were being hammered by Pontypool. Llio made a sound of disgust in the back of her throat – she’d have to deal with an obnoxiously jubilant Bryce on Monday – and threw her phone down on the duvet. At least Arsenal were higher than Swansea in the Premiership tables by a laughably enormous amount, despite the fact that Swansea beat them 3-1 in the last game between the two clubs (she hadn’t lived that down for almost a month, until Brighton beat them 4-1).

Margaery looked over at her and plucked the magazine out of her hands, rolling her eyes.

‘We’re supposed to be having a girly night,’ she complained, ‘which means you sit and watch bad romcoms with me, we paint our nails and wear facemasks, and gossip. No football allowed.’

Llio reached for her phone to check Twitter for the rugby updates, but Margaery fixed her with a glare.

‘ _Or_ rugby.’

Llio scowled, scrubbing at her face with her hands. She hated Margaery’s ‘girly nights’ – a weekly institution started by their mother when Garlan and Willas were taken to rugby practise every Thursday. Willas didn’t go any more, after a rugby scrum gone wrong in 2013 dislocated his knee and prematurely ended his career at the very same match attended by the talent scouts from the Ospreys, but the tradition remained since he was now away at university anyway. Willas, to his credit, had bowed out gracefully, given that he hadn’t really altogether had much of a passion for playing professional rugby, but his knee still gave him a lot of trouble and he was frequently seen having to hobble around on crutches, despite several surgeries to try and repair the damage.

Llio would have killed to be allowed to attend rugby practise. She was the best in Year 11 at school, played on the school team (well, the tag rugby team, anyway, the only one the girls were allowed to play), and was the star student in their PE lessons. She _was_ allowed to play for the school football team, which were currently top of the local schools’ league tables (not saying much, given that their county was so enormous and so spread-out with so few people living in it that said league table consisted of only about four schools), but. Well. It wasn’t the same.

Margaery waved her newly-manicured hand in front of Llio’s face, gesturing to the assortment of nail polish bottles, buffers, emery boards and general paraphernalia on her bed. She picked up a bottle of base coat and rested Llio’s hand on her knee, unscrewing the top until the air smelled sharp and chemical, stinging Llio’s nose, and began filing what was left of her sister’s nails, brow slightly creased with concentration.

Llio let her, watching with a sense of total detachment, as though the hand being manicured didn’t even belong to her, and ignored the churning in her stomach.

‘Sansa got me this colour,’ Margaery smiled, her voice softening the way it always did when she spoke about her girlfriend. She’d been with Sansa for ages, what felt like years, having bonded with the soft-spoken redhead ever since Year 7. They’d been friends, and then, at the Year 9 winter formal (when Septa Eglantine’s Public School for Girls joined with their brother school, King’s Landing School for Boys), Margaery had asked Sansa to the dance and, despite both of them having ‘dates’ – boys roped into escorting them, Renly Baratheon for Margaery and Joffrey Baratheon for Sansa – they’d hit it off together and ended up cosying up in the corner.

Llio, who hated anything even threatening a relation to dancing, would have been jealous if she’d been paying attention. Instead, she’d been completely unable to take her eyes off Renly Baratheon, who had spent the night leaning against the wall next to her and trying to persuade her to join him for the Time Warp, which he’d requested from the DJ. Llio turned him down every time, but not without a small amount of regret.

Margaery moved onto painting Llio’s nails with basecoat, her sister still miles away in memories of Renly’s shaggy dark hair escaping from the gelled hold it had been in on the evening of the winter formal, before she spoke.

‘Away with the fairies, Llio?’

Llio came back to herself abruptly, her cheeks flaming pink. If Margaery found out she’d been thinking about Renly again, she’d never hear the end of it – she was teased enough for her crush on him as it was. Margaery, who had a nose like a bloodhound for her sister’s innermost thoughts, cracked a wicked grin.

‘You need to ask him out.’

‘Girls don’t do the asking out,’ Llio retorted, ‘and besides, I don’t have a crush on him. He’s my best friend.’

‘I’m your best friend,’ Margaery corrected her, ‘and actually, girls can and do do the asking out, because I asked out Sansa.’

‘But you’re different,’ Llio said, trying not to pout. ‘That’s two girls. There’s no boy in that equation.’

‘Thank God.’

Llio didn’t respond, instead looking down at her nails, which were now perfectly crescent-shaped, if extremely short, and a deep, glittering emerald green. She drummed her fingers on her knee, smudging her middle finger, and Margaery made a despairing noise before turfing Llio off her bed with one foot and shaking her head in exasperation.

Llio picked the _Match_ magazine up off the floor, turned back to the page about Arsenal’s new signing, and tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach at the sight of her newly-painted hands turning the pages.

* * *

At school the next morning, she headed straight for the cycle shed behind the school Sixth Form block where Renly, Royce, Bryce, Emmon and Guyard were hanging out and smoking. Well, Bryce and Royce were smoking; Renly was laughing at something one of them had said, unlit cigarette in one hand and one of his A-Level English books in the other. He waved Llio over with a brilliant smile and threw an arm around her shoulders as she arrived, pulling her in tight against his side until the smell of his deodorant and the shaving cream he used filled her nose. The fact that the two schools joined up for a co-ed Sixth Form, on her campus, was Llio’s favourite thing about attending Septa Eglantine’s. The only good thing, even.

Llio wriggled away from Renly, squashing down the part of her that wanted desperately to hold on, and slapped him a high five, stealing the cigarette out of his hand and touching it to the end of Bryce’s to light it. Renly gasped in mock-outrage, but let her have it, pulling another out of the packet in the inside pocket of his blazer and lighting up.

‘Not very sportswomanlike of you,’ he told her with a grin, ‘smoking behind the bike sheds. You’ll ruin your lungs.’

‘Ruined lungs or not, Baratheon, I can still play a better game of football than you,’ she retorted, and took a deep drag just to illustrate her point. Renly shrugged, still smiling, and acknowledged her point.

‘Speaking of the football, Tyrell, what the shit is Wenger doing, signing Aubameyang? We don’t need any bloody Borussia Dortmund players–’

‘Borussia are head of the German league–’

‘Borussia are filthy cheats and divers!’ Royce howled, slamming a fist into his palm for emphasis. Llio raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

‘So are Swansea,’ she retorted, with a sly glance at Bryce, and burst out laughing as he immediately flared up in his team’s defence. Renly, who zoned out whenever the topic turned to sports, rolled his eyes and elbowed Emmon into letting him borrow his biology homework to copy the answers.

A companionable half hour was spent arguing over the merits of various Premier League players, insults traded between the Arsenal and Swansea fans, before the bell rang, signifying the start of morning registration. Renly stubbed out his cigarette and waved Llio goodbye as he headed inside, and she waved back, lingering to watch him disappear up the stairs to his form room before making her way to her own classes.

She watched the clock throughout chemistry with Mr Cressen and English with Miss Mordane, desperate for breaktime to arrive so that she could see Renly again. None of the girls in her class interested her, nor was she particularly great friends with them; Llio had always gravitated naturally towards male friends, who tended to share her interest in football, rugby and roughhousing. Unfortunately, as they’d got older, the boys had started to push her away from their lunchtime games of football, saying that girls weren’t allowed or weren’t good enough at the sport to play. Llio had fought, for the first few years, until her mother told her in no uncertain terms that if she punched one more boy in the face the school was going to expel her, and so she’d decided that she’d just practise alone until she was good enough that she could beat all of them.

The bell finally rang for break, and she hurriedly threw her things in her locker before all but flying outside to see Renly and the rest of his gang. They were exactly where she’d left them that morning, hiding behind the bike sheds, Emmon with his vape in hand (ridiculous hipster that he was) and Renly having his textiles coursework open on his lap, using a bottle of PVA to stick swatches of fabric into his scrapbook.

She sat down beside him and poked at a piece of green velvet. ‘That’s a good colour.’

‘Matches your nails,’ Renly said, and she quickly fisted her hands, hiding them from view, but it was too late.

‘You’ve painted your nails, Tyrell? Are you becoming a proper girl at last?’ Royce grinned, grabbing one of her hands and forcing the fingers out straight. ‘Look, all filed and everything. Didn’t peg you as the sort of lass who liked a manicure.’

‘I don’t,’ she gritted out, wrenching her hand away from him. ‘It was my sister.’ Her stomach was flip-flopping, her head pounding, and she glared at Royce, daring him to say something else. He just snorted and turned back to mocking Emmon for the watermelon smell of his vape liquid. Llio looked back at Renly, who was watching her with a strange expression on his face.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Nothing,’ he said quickly, a flush rising up his freckled cheeks. ‘Just… Royce was right. I never thought of you as the kind of girl who liked doing that sort of thing, or even of letting Margaery do that.’ He smiled at her. ‘It looks really pretty though. I might make something for you in that colour. A blouse, or a dress, maybe. I have to sew something for my final project anyway, and I’ve been looking for a muse.’

He grinned, teasing. Llio tried to muster a smile in response, but it stuck on her face, curdling, as her stomach lurched.

* * *

She lay on her back on the bed, laptop balanced on her chest, breasts squashed underneath the weight of it and her head propped up just enough on the pillows to be able to see the video on the screen. She’d nicked this DVD from Garlan’s stash under his bed, the one she knew he thought she didn’t know about; there had been so many to choose from, mostly lesbian (ugh, straight guys, she thought), but in the end, she’d gone for what felt like the safest option.

The two figures on screen were wound around each other, the man with his head between the woman’s thighs, licking over her cunt. Llio watched his tongue flick over the woman’s clit, heard her moans, tinny from the speakers, in her ears; watched as he spread the lips apart with two fingers and pushed two more into the wet opening between the woman’s legs.

She closed her eyes, her hand inching down to rub tentatively at herself, the skin hot and slick beneath her fingers. She imagined strong, masculine hands on her thighs, pushing them wide, holding her down against the bed as stubble rasped against the sensitive skin and a hot tongue probed between her legs. She arched against the mattress, thrusting her hips up, imagined her cock disappearing into the spit-slick ring of the man’s lips –

She sat bolt upright, suddenly clammy and panting hard, wrenching her hands out of her boxers. She shuddered, a heavy weight settling in her chest, and felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, sobs beginning to wrench at her, and let herself go.

* * *

From that moment on, she was quiet. Quiet as a mouse, quiet as the grave. She was terrified that if she opened her mouth, it would come spilling out of her – all about her crush on Renly, who didn’t even like girls (he’d told her, in passing, one day behind the bike sheds when they were discussing going to single-sex schools and he’d said how happy he was to be in an all-boys school, waxing rhapsodic about Jaime Lannister in the year above’s abs whenever he took his shirt off to celebrate a goal. Llio had thought that as far as crushes on boys go, Renly could do _way_ better than _Jaime Lannister_ of all people); about the incident with the porn video, when she’d imagined her body smooth and flat everywhere apart from the cock pushing down the man’s throat; about the dreams she’d had where, moving on from just kissing Renly, it had progressed to a murky, cloudy sort of muddle of hands all over bodies, hardness pressed against her thigh and an answering one in her own shorts, deep, masculine groans echoing in her ears with none of the high-pitched whines of a girl’s voice.

At night, when Margaery was asleep, she’d boot up her laptop and scroll through Wikipedia until the swarm of words and definitions made her head spin; would watch YouTube videos from people using the same terminology, trying to see herself in them and what they were saying, and feeling sick every time something did touch that deeply buried part of her. The more she learned, the more afraid she felt until it felt like she was choking on it.

She couldn’t let anybody know, and yet, it pained her so much that she _had_ to let it out.

It was crushing, a lump in her throat that was only growing with the confusion. It was impossible, horrible, this feeling of lying to everybody just by existing every time she heard ‘girl’ or ‘miss’. Her name didn’t seem to belong to her any more, even though it never really had in the first place – just a feminised version of her great-great-grandfather who’d fought in the First World War, the first Leo Tyrell – and she had no idea how to take it back. Instead she withdrew and hoped it would just go away of its own accord.

Margaery, of course, noticed almost straight away.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Llio mumbled, chewing at her thumbnail, flaking the green polish off with her teeth. It had nearly all gone now, just the last flecks left on the bottoms of her nails, but its presence niggled at her, a reminder that she was… Whatever she was.

‘Bullshit,’ Margaery said succinctly, fixing her with one of her patented Looks that stated that Llio was going to spill the beans or Margaery would lock her in the room with her until she did (learned from Grandma). ‘You’ve been acting weird for ages. What’s up?’

‘Nothing’s up!’ Llio insisted, snapping at her. ‘Just – school and all that shit. Exams coming up.’

‘You don’t give a crap about exams,’ Margaery snorted. ‘You want to play rugby for Wales, and you don’t exactly need a C or above in English to do that.’

Llio ignored her, gnawing on her thumb and scrolling through Twitter on her phone, anything to keep her hands busy. Margaery grabbed the phone out of her hand and held it above her head, batting Llio’s hands out of the way when her sister lunged for it.

‘Llio, tell me and I’ll give it back!’

She shook her head, making a final snatch for the phone and managing to yank it out of her sister’s grasp. She bolted off the mattress, grabbing a hoodie from the bedpost and toeing into her trainers before making her escape, ignoring the stinging in the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t even tell Margaery, who had shared all of her secrets since she was old enough to listen. Llio slammed the front door behind her as she broke out into a run, her feet thudding on the pavement, lungs burning.

* * *

The bright yellow door to Renly’s house was left slightly open, the way it always was when his brother Robert was home (he was always stumbling in drunk at all hours, so Renly wasn’t allowed to shut the door entirely in case it locked Robert out), and she could see the lights were on in Renly’s room upstairs through his curtains. She knocked anyway, just in case, before heading up when Renly’s cheerful voice yelled ‘come in!’.

The moment she walked in and he saw her face, he paused the game of Mass Effect he was playing on his Xbox and made a space for her on his bed, throwing an arm out in wordless invitation. Llio stumbled towards the bed and collapsed onto it, immediately curling into a ball by his side and trying to control the wracking sobs still clawing at her chest.

‘Hey, hey,’ Renly said softly, putting his controller to one side and laying back to pull her closer, ‘what’s the matter? Llio?’

‘Don’t,’ she mumbled, shaking her head, ‘don’t call me that.’ She was speaking into the soft blue cotton of his tshirt, the smell of him clean and the skin of his arm around her shoulders still slightly damp after a shower, so the words were muffled into the cloth but still ringing, too loud for her ears and too big for her mouth, over the white noise in her head. He let her cry for a couple of minutes, whispering shushing noises and stroking his hand over her hair, until the sobs quietened and she could breathe again, albeit through a disgustingly runny, snotty nose.

‘Beautiful,’ he teased as they sat up again, and she punched him on the shoulder.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, serious now, and Llio made a helpless gesture. Where to start?

‘I don’t know,’ she mumbled. ‘Things are just… weird. With me. Right now.’

‘Weirder than you are already?’ he said, a grin pulling at the corners of his lips, eyes sparkling. ‘Impossible.’

She choked out a laugh, punching his shoulder again half-heartedly, and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing the unruly curls back off her face. ‘Just… weird.’

‘How come?’

She hesitated. This was Renly, her best friend since childhood, when he’d knocked on the window of her car when she was sulking inside to demand that she come play Harry Potter with him (even holding up a stick he’d collected for her wand); there was nothing they couldn’t tell each other. Renly had told her first about him being gay; he’d told her about the first time he’d been kissed (cornered by one of Cersei Lannister’s minions against the bike sheds) and about the first time he’d kissed someone else (a boy he’d met at a summer camp when he was fifteen, and they’d had a whirlwind summer romance of shy kisses and occasional hands down pants). But this was different. This was the secret that could ruin everything.

What if he thought she was a freak? She’d die. She’d live. It’d break her heart, but maybe that was what she needed to hear to make all of this, the confusion, the lump in her throat, the pervasive feeling of wrongness that made her skin crawl and her head ache, go away. Wasn’t that what she wanted – for it all to go away? Or (and maybe this was, somehow, even worse) what if he _didn’t_ think she was a freak? What if he immediately got it, and agreed with her, and then she had to do something other than panic about it?

‘It’s okay,’ he said gently, rubbing soothing circles over her arms, his eyes kind and understanding. She loved him so much it hurt; loved him enough, maybe, that the hurt of keeping this from him outweighed the pain of the thought of losing him over it.

‘It’s not,’ she gulped, shaking her head. ‘It’s not. Everything’s fucked. I’m fucked.’

‘What’s wrong?’ he repeated, coaxing.

‘I am.’ She finally raised her gaze to meet his. ‘I’m wrong. I’m not supposed to be like this. I’m not… I don’t think I’m… I’m not a girl.’

‘Okay…’ He was frowning, trying to understand, but he didn’t immediately push Llio away. ‘What does that mean?’

He buried his head back in Renly’s shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut, desperate to know what he was thinking but too terrified to find out. Instead, he balled his fists in Renly’s tshirt and pressed his face to the crook of the older boy’s neck, breathing in the scent of Renly’s shampoo and body wash from his shower.

‘I’m not a girl. I’m a boy.’

‘Oh.’ Renly’s hand stopped stroking his shoulder for a moment, and Llio could hear the cogs turning in his friend’s head as Renly processed that information.

‘I understand,’ he mumbled into the warm skin by his mouth, ‘if you don’t want to be my friend anymore.’

‘Why on earth wouldn’t I want to be your friend any more, you complete idiot?’ Renly asked, and tugged on Llio’s hair with an exasperated sigh. ‘You’re my best friend, and if anything, you being a boy makes that even better because now we can get those matching leather jackets like I always wanted.’

Llio burst out laughing – he couldn’t help it – and punched Renly’s shoulder again, tackling the older boy to the bed as Renly cackled and fought back with nimble fingers digging into all of the ticklish spots along his ribs. Llio gasped and cried out in between the hysterics, frantically trying to get away from the torture, and Renly eventually let him go, still beaming at him.

‘You really are an idiot,’ he said fondly, and passed Llio the other Xbox controller. ‘And to prove it, I’m going to kick your arse at Mass Effect like I always do.’

‘You’re on,’ Llio grinned, and clicked X to join the game.

* * *

‘You need a new name,’ Renly said as he flicked on the bedside light, facing Llio across his double bed. Llio groaned.

‘I suppose I do.’

‘What about Orville?’

‘You’re kidding, right?’ Llio glared at him. Renly smirked.

‘Armand.’

‘Hell no.’

‘Ronald.’

‘Who in their right mind would choose to be called Ronald?’ He glowered at Renly, who by now was trying to smother giggles into his pillow.

‘Ooh! Donald, like Trump.’

‘I will _kill_ you.’

‘Kyle.’

‘Nope.’

‘Oswald.’

‘Sensible suggestions only, please.’

‘Keith.’

Llio made a face. ‘Keith is possibly the ugliest name ever invented. Along with Barry – Gods, can you imagine being called Barry in this day and age? – or Melvin.’

‘Engelbert Humperdinck.’

‘…I _will_ smother you with that pillow.’

‘Maurice.’

‘Renly, may the Maiden grant me patience…’

‘What about Fergus? Tarquin? Petyr?’

Llio decked him with the pillow, and again when he wouldn’t stop laughing, until things devolved into a furious pillow fight which only ended when Renly’s pillow burst, covering the room in feathers and making both of them laugh so hard that continuing was impossible. Llio lay flat on his back, panting, and turned his head to look at Renly.

‘What about Loras?’

‘Loras,’ Renly repeated. ‘Loras, Loras, Loras,’ he said, as though turning it over in his mouth. ‘I like it.’

And so it was decided.

* * *

The next person he told was Margaery, who whacked him over the head with his GCSE Biology textbook for not telling her sooner before giving him a rib-cracking hug (when had she gotten so _strong_?), and after that, coming out was almost easy. Willas smiled with an ‘I’ve known forever’ kind of expression on his face. Garlan just shrugged, but a couple of days later came into his bedroom with an Amazon parcel, handed it to Loras with great ceremony, and then stood there laughing when it was unwrapped to reveal a Man Card, with his name already printed on it. (He rolled his eyes, because Garlan was _an idiot_ , but he was still secretly pleased.) His mother and father took it well, although his father blustered a bit and his mum wept. And Grandma was, well, Grandma about it.

‘Of course you are, Loras. Now go and help your mother with the dishes, young man, they won’t wash themselves.’

He went straight around to Renly’s again (after helping Alerie with the dishes, on pain of Grandma’s ingenuity) to share the good news. Renly slung an arm around his shoulders and passed him a beer (which Loras was even happier about than the success with his family), and then suggested a match on Call of Duty, where he was promptly roundly beaten. Ignoring Renly’s protests of ‘Cheater!’ and demands of a rematch, Loras tossed the controllers aside and lay back on the bed, toying idly with the edge of the covers and staring at the ceiling of Renly’s bedroom.

His friend flopped down next to him a moment later, leaning up on one elbow and drawing lazy patterns with his fingertips over the fragile skin on Loras’ wrist, watching Loras’ face with a soft smile.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey,’ Loras said, smiling back at him, and, on the spur of the moment, moved his hand to lace their fingers together. Renly looked down at him, face inscrutable.

‘Is this okay?’ Loras asked.

Renly was quiet for a moment, thinking, before he nodded slowly and leaned closer. ‘But,’ he murmured, ‘only if I can…’

He was moving closer, his gaze flicking between Loras’ wide eyes and his lips, and Loras’ heart thundered in his chest. He tensed, waiting, hoping beyond hope, and let his eyes drift shut, tilting his chin up towards Renly’s face. Renly’s hand – the one not still tangled with Loras’ fingers, anyway – moved to cup his chin, his thumb tracing the curve of Loras’ lower lip, and Loras opened his mouth slightly on a soft puff of breath, trying to control the dizzying rush of want that coursed through him.

Renly kissed him slowly, gently, a dry brush of his lips over Loras’, turning the younger boy’s chin towards him. Loras melted into it like warmed butter, and felt Renly smile, chuckling quietly.

‘I’ve been waiting for so long for you to do that,’ Loras mumbled, chasing after Renly’s mouth as the older boy retreated, and Renly laughed.

‘Guess I shouldn’t keep you waiting any longer, then.’

‘I guess not.’

**Author's Note:**

> 'Authentic Man Cards' can be found [here](https://officialmangear.com/product/authentic-man-card/) and it is my life's ambition to receive one.
> 
> Comments and criticism are welcome, but please, if you're just going to misgender Loras or say how you don't see him as trans, don't bother.


End file.
